The Record Breaking Election

If you have a social profile of any kind on almost any platform, you were involved in the election. Regardless of if you wanted to be or not. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, even Instagram users managed to delve into politics via social networking like never before. Both candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, used Facebook and Twitter to promote their campaigns and especially to reach out to the the young adults of the nation. In fact, the election was the most talked about event on Facebook this year, ranking in 71.7 million mentions and comments by users. The article states that ” but Election Day buzz was highest with the 25-34 year-old crowd.” This is progressive. Social media platforms have made politics accessible to the lazy youths of America. As I previously stated in my first blog post, it wouldn’t be surprising that voting became an interactive web activity, furthering removing any excuse for the tech savvy youths to use against voting. I think this defies the idea of technological determinism, Facebook did not make us vote, just simply afforded us a reminder of this important event.

What’s more interesting to me is the amount of people I saw within my own social feeds that fervently expressed their political opinions. What wasn’t interesting though was which friends were supporters of Obama and similarly friends that were supportive of Romney. It was quite formulated. A large majority of my friends from college were undeniably PrObama (my own word) and friends I knew from home and highschool were die-hard Romnians.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Friends of mine that are between the ages of 18-26 were all passionately verbal about their political preferences. However, family members and other individuals who I asked that were above 40 told me it was none of my business. When considering Hugo Liu’s taste statements, all of these individuals were trying to convey something different to their social media followings. The 40+’s maintaining their right to private voting and the youths parading around their newly acquired right to vote and have political views.

For additional amusement, please click on this link to see Romney’s decreasing Facebook likes in real time.